McCain’s 100 Years of Solitude
unseen warrr, originally uploaded by hollywalnuts.
As the general election looms (finally), Democrats have their sights set on attacking John McCain. His biggest target, arguably, is his now infamous “100 years” statement. When asked about the possibility of staying in Iraq for 50 years, he replied:
“Make it a hundred… We’ve been in Japan for 60 years. We’ve been in South Korea for 50 years or so. That would be fine with me, as long as Americans are not being injured or harmed or wounded or killed. It’s fine with me and I hope it would be fine with you if we maintained a presence in a very volatile part of the world.”
Recently, the DNC released an ad suggesting that McCain would have the war as it is now go on for 100 years. This, we must admit, is simply not true.
Let’s re-phrase that. The ad misrepresents what McCain was saying. As to how long McCain would allow the current situation in Iraq to continue, he hasn’t said. Like President Bush, McCain is an optimist on Iraq. He says that we must win, but balks at describing what lengths we should go to.
But back to what McCain was saying. He was proposing (or, I should say, fantasizing) that U.S. troops remain in Iraq permanently, after relative peace and calm is established, much like troops remain in South Korea.
There are three major problems with this proposal. The first is that it imagines a Korean-war-like stalemate between two states. This, of course, is absurd, and suggests that John McCain has no understanding of the situation in Iraq whatsoever. There is no war between the armies of North and South Iraq. There is instead a cornucopia of sectarian violence between Sunnis, Al-Qeada, insurgents, local militias, and different sects of Shiites.
Problem two was best illustrated by Joe Klein:
“The problem with John McCain’s 100 years in Iraq formulation isn’t that he’s calling for 95 more years of combat–he isn’t–but that he thinks
Isn’t that one of the main reasons Islamic Fundamentalists hate us is that we station troops in what they consider holy lands? It sure would be nice if the U.S. could throw the Arab world a bone once in a while. Not using their countries as military bases (or prisons) would be a decent place to start.
As an intro to problem three, I’d like to ask you a trivia question. Besides Iraq, what foreign country has the most U.S. troops? If you guessed Afghanistan, you’re wrong. If you guessed South Korea or Japan, you are also wrong. The answer is… Germany! Here are the numbers (courtesy of Wikipedia):
Germany – 63,958.
Japan – 48,844
South Korea – 26,477
Afghanistan – About 19,500
Italy – 11,693
United Kingdom – 10,967
Bahrain – 2,333
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba – 1,457
Perhaps some of these soldiers must be stationed around the world in order to give the U.S. the power of deterrence, to project a message to rogue states and states supporting terrorism that “if you attack us, retribution will be swift.” But in the age of Stealth Bombers and cruise missiles, does an infantry really play a role in deterrence?
I also couldn’t help but notice that we have more than 120,000 soldiers in World War Two Axis countries. This troop deployment looks suspiciously like some ancient relic of the late ‘40’s, where we worried both about the rise of communism and the return of fascism. Aside from costing our government an ungodly amount of money, what exactly are 60,000 soldiers doing in Germany? Protecting West Berlin? Preventing the rise of the Fourth Reich?
Even if peace is established in Iraq anytime soon, what purpose would a long-term U.S. troop presence serve? Stability? We haven’t exactly provided much of that lately. A base for future operations? Future operations like…invading Iran?
Certain policies are taken for granted, no matter how inane they are — ethanol production, for example. We need to rethink our foreign policy in terms of how other countries see us. The world isn’t going to stop resenting America because George W. Bush is no longer our President.
Furthermore, Democrats should attack McCain’s 100 years policy, but should do so honestly. McCain’s ideas are bad enough as they are; we don’t need to misrepresent them.
“Isn’t that one of the main reasons Islamic Fundamentalists hate us is that we station troops in what they consider holy lands?” The reason they hate us is because we support regimes that put forward less radical policies than they desire. They long to have political power in order to enact their ends. In order to drum up popular support they cite a myriad of issues, one of which is the stationing of troops in Saudi Arabia. However these are nothing more than clever distractions with which to distract their people from the root cause of their suffering.
We can attempt to capitulate on every one of these complaints, but in the end if they didn’t have the ones they use now they would simply invent some. By being a positive force in the region, through our presence, we can offer the people of the middle east another path. One that departs from the status quo of military dictatorship or a theocracy. We do not move forward by disengaging from those who oppose us in the middle east because then only their voices will be heard.
We have made many mistakes in the way in which we have attempted to change the dynamics in the middle east. However the alternatives, the status quo realists or the fruitless path of “liberal” apologists, are equally repugnant. Being a positive force for change in the middle east requires work on all fronts including that of PR. We often forget the role perception played throughout the 20th century. Sometimes the people must be seduced into doing the right thing. It is a sad truth, but a truth none the less.